Israel in Lebanon: The Report of the International Commission to Enquire into Reported Violations of International Law by Israel During its Invasion of Lebanon

London: Ithaca Press, 1983 282 pp. (paperback)

Reviewed by Landrum Bolling

Overlapping the work of the highly-publicized official Israeli Commission of Inquiry on the Sabra and Shatila massacres, a nonofficial International Commission has conducted a farranging assessment of the whole Israeli action in Lebanon. The two commissions have now issued their reports, almost simultaneously, but, so far, with totally different public reactions.

The Israeli report, rightly, has attracted worldwide attention. The International Commission's report has been almost totally ignored. Yet, of the two, it tries to answer the broader and more fundamental questions: Were there valid reasons for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon? Did Israel commit acts of aggression contrary to international law? In the conduct of its war in Lebanon did Israel use weapons and methods of warfare forbidden by international law? Has Israel treated the prisoners it took and the people whose territory it occupies in ways consistent with the rules of the international community?

Media Did Not Exaggerate

Underlying all of its investigation was another unspoken query: Was the Israeli invasion, in human terms, really as horrible as the world press and television made it out to be? If eye-witnesses and victims interviewed by the Commission are to be believed, the answer is a simple, unmistakable "yes."

Graphic and persuasive as the testimony is on the suffering of the Palestinian and Lebanese people involved, the report is really about matters of international law.

The Commission members are distinguished specialists in the law and international affairs: Chairman, Sean MacBride, former Foreign Minister of Ireland, former Assistant Secretary- General of the United Nations, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, winner of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize; Richard Falk, holder of a chair in international law at Princeton; Kader Asmal, Senior Lecturer in Law and a dean at Trinity College, Dublin; Geraud de la Pradelle, Professor of Private Law, University of Paris; Stefan Wild, Professor of Semitic Languages and Islamic Studies, University of Bonn.

To the Israeli government this was not a suitable endeavor, and it refused to cooperate when asked to present its point of view, and advised Israeli citizens "not to give evidence" before the Commission. Nevertheless, Commission members took extensive testimony inside Israel, and a number of Israelis came forward to describe their experiences and express their opinions of the invasion of Lebanon. Among them were both supporters and critics of Begin-Sharon policies—on each side both military personnel and civilians. Staff researchers sifted mountains of documents and press reports, and gave particular attention to Israeli newspapers. Commission members themselves visited the former combat areas. Like other investigators, the Commission could not establish a precise body count of the killed and wounded, but it was satisfied that the total came to many thousands, including far more Lebanese and Palestinian civilians than PLO and Syrian fighters. Hospital records made that clear. Nor could they establish just what the cost of physical destruction had been, though the records they examined convinced them it amounted to many billions of dollars.

Unjustified Destruction

The essential question the Commission wrestled with: Was it all justified? Did Israel have good cause to inflict so much death and destruction upon a neighboring land and its inhabitants? The Commission's conclusion was, in a word: "no."

"The invasion has no validity in international law," the report declares, "as Israel did not have any grounds to rely on the provision of the Charter of the United Nations concerning self-defense, while the means used to effect the invasion totally lacked proportionality. The cease-fire of July, 1981 had been observed scrupulously (by the PLO). The objective of the war ... was to achieve certain political and strategic aims at high cost."

Other starkly stated judgments against Israeli acts in Lebanon: ". . . acts of aggression contrary to international law." ". . . use of weapons or methods of warfare forbidden in international law." ". . . deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombardment of hospitals, schools, and other nonmilitary targets." ". . . systematic bombardment and other destruction to towns, cities, villages. and refugee camps." ". . . dispersal, deportation and ill-treatment of populations, in violation of international law."

The Commission also ruled that Israeli authorities "were involved directly or indirectly" in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila.

Israel is obviously not going to like this Commission and its report any better than it thought it would.

Landrum Bolling is Research Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.